Most people who want to see a Broadway show only want the best seats (and will pay for them), right? That is except for those who want the lowest price seats. And no one wants the middle price seats? These maxims were well established on Broadway for many years. With the internet offering access to tickets from anywhere with many if not all the prices listed so you can pick the price you want, and seating charts that allow customers to pick their seats from the chart, ticket buying behavior has changed from the old days. At the same time shows run longer and more people are attending shows than ever before. Not every show is priced like Hamilton or Bruce Springsteen. Broadway is affordable.

The Telecharge mobile site offers us some insights into the pricing preferences of customers, at least of the subset of customers who do their research on the mobile site (many subsequently buy on the desktop). For most of this year we have had a feature on the Telecharge mobile site that allows customers to search by price in addition to the tried and true method of looking for the best seats available. More than a third of the searches in a recent four week period were by people who chose to search by price. That is a significant percentage.

What were the prices they picked to search?

$50-$99.50

58%

3% converted

$100-$149.50

17.5%

3.44% converted (1/3 of the sales of the $50-$99.50)

Under $50

15.63%

4.46% converted (one half the sales of $50-$99.50)

What were the individual prices that generated the most searches? In order of highest to lowest, the six highest were:
$79,
$49,
$99,
$69,
$59,
$89.50.

The drop off from #6 to #7, which was $119, is significant.

Keep in mind individual shows and their corresponding demand will skew results (not all shows have a $49 or $79 price). What is interesting is the number of two digit prices with a high number of searches and conversions. It tells us something about what people want to pay. Now, we all want things in life we can’t have. I want a Bentley but I am probably never going to own one. Wouldn’t everyone want to sit down front in the center orchestra for $79? If they could the show would not be able to run very long.

One third of searches were by people who were sensitive and that is a very significant percentage of the audience, at least of the mobile audience. Those who are less price sensitive probably just searched by date and location.
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Does your show have seats you struggle to sell? Sometimes the reason could be they are priced incorrectly.